Sifteo Cubes: Redesigning Play for Geeklets

The internet of things is here. It exists in our phones, our televisions, our pens, our tablets – and now in the most basic of play things, the building block.

I’ve been waiting for the arrival of Sifteo cubes since I saw David Merrill’s TED talk about “siftables” two years ago. Well, the wait is over and they are here … almost. Sifteo cubes are blocks with screens, that interact with each other and your computer over a wireless USB radio link. They are described by their creators as “intelligent play” and you can see that they could really get people interested in tabletop gaming with a tech bent. But I’m interested — like many others according to David Merrill — about the educational potential of these new play things.

The cubes were the idea of two geek dads, David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi, who studied together at Stanford but were both at MIT Media Labs obsessing over human and technology interaction and user interfaces. It was over a discussion about the way we use our hands differently on computers (this was a discussion before the proliferation of touch screens) than in real life that they began to “riff” on the question: what if we engaged with technology based devices in the same way we engage with a pile of LEGO?

What this has resulted in are devices that appear to draw on a number of play traditions and present them in a new tech form. You can see that these blocks are a throwback to the table top games of mahjong or dominoes, but link with the play of children in the form of building blocks. The potential of these to facilitate learning, particularly for children who learn in kinesthetic ways through physically moving things and using their hands or for students who seem to be at their best when engaged in game-based learning is high. We can hope that these are not just a fad for geeks and their kids, but that educators look beyond the simplistic models on one-to-one mobile devices and recognize that technology can be a real enabler of twenty-first century skills through emerging play and learning technology like Sifteo cubes.

What do I mean?

Well, consider how these cubes could be used to support collaboration with the right designed game, or help students with dyslexia develop literacy skills through the moving and shaping of blocks with letters and words. The cubes offer a whole range of options when learning about spatial concepts and engaging students in game-based learning activities. They will also be offering the Sifteo Creativity Kit which will allow anyone to refine and change games. It isn’t a full blown development tool for non-programmers, but it will allow children and parents to develop the complexity and challenge of playful activity using Sifteo cubes.

Of course, there are things to watch. How will developers embrace designing for this new tool? What will their app store look like? How many blocks will I need? The potential is there — and that is important. When we get a set in our hot little hands, we will make sure we share more with you about the experience.

In the meantime, you can pre-order your own set over at the Sifteo website.